Jellyfish Studio — Procedural Jellyfish Generator

Grow animated jellyfish from their anatomy: 23 real and imagined species, translucent glowing tissue, a pulse from real measurements and tentacles simulated in water. For URP in Unity 6.

Built and tested with Unity 6000.3.21f1 and the Universal Render Pipeline 17.3 (Forward and Forward+). Built-in RP and HDRP are not supported in this version.

Dependencies: none beyond URP - URP 17.3 brings the Burst, Mathematics and Collections packages it uses. No third-party code or content.

Number of meshes/prefabs: 23 stock jellyfish prefabs, plus 8 sample prefabs used by the demo scenes; each jellyfish's meshes are generated on import from its .jellyfish design file.

Polygon count: 33 k to 472 k triangles (18 k to 241 k vertices, median 108 k) per stock jellyfish - hero quality; lower the Detail section on a copy for crowds.

Minimum polygon count: 33 k triangles. Maximum polygon count: 472 k triangles.

Number of textures: no texture files are shipped apart from the 23 picker thumbnails; each jellyfish generates its own pattern maps on import.

Texture dimensions: generated pattern maps of 1024 x 512 or 2048 x 1024 per jellyfish.

Types of materials and texture maps: custom URP shaders for translucent tissue, bioluminescence and procedural colour, built per jellyfish on import; no PBR texture sets.

Rigging: No - there is no skeleton; the GPU bends shared meshes from the simulated body pose and strand points.

Animation count: 0 animation clips. Animation type list: procedural pulse, swimming and turning, with tentacles, oral arms and cloth veils simulated in water.

UV mapping: Yes - generated with the meshes.

LOD information: no LOD groups; the Detail section sets the resolution of each design.

Simulation: tentacles, oral arms and cloth veils in Burst jobs at 120 Hz on worker threads; a slow frame takes fewer, longer steps.

Measured on an RTX 3080 Ti and a Ryzen 9 3950X (Unity editor, Direct3D 12): GPU 0.4 ms (Halo Crown) to 1.4 ms (Lion's Mane, Pacific sea nettle) per jellyfish filling a large part of a 1440p frame; main thread 0.13 to 0.55 ms per hero jellyfish, median 0.19 ms.

Rendering: translucent layers sorted per camera (order-independent for rings, bubbles and coils); scene lights, probes and fog; refraction needs the Opaque Texture, glowing species need Bloom; no shadows cast or received; SMAA or FXAA recommended.

Scripting: the Jellyfish component (Design, Pose, CurrentPlan, Rhythm, Velocity, WaterCurrent, PathDistance; ResetSimulation(), Settle(), Pulse(), FollowPath()) with live Swimming, Behaviour, Physics and Variation settings; JellyfishDesignFiles in the editor (CreateJellyfish, Duplicate, ResetToFactory, Generate).

Demo input: Input Manager or Input System package. Editor interface in English.

Documentation: manual, quick start, changelog and third-party notices (Markdown). Download about 3 MB; the first import builds all 23 jellyfish in a few minutes.

Jellyfish Studio grows animated jellyfish from their anatomy in Unity 6 (6000.3) with the Universal Render Pipeline (URP 17.3): pick one of 23 stock species - real and imagined - or design your own, press Play, and it pulses, swims, sways and trails its tentacles on its own.

23 STOCK JELLYFISH, REAL AND IMAGINED

- Eight modelled on real species: Pacific sea nettle, moon jelly, lion's mane, purple-striped jelly, crystal jelly, mauve stinger, compass jelly and fried egg jelly.

- Fifteen imagined and stylised ones: the glowing Neon Abyss and Ember, the ring-shaped Halo Crown, the bubble-covered Bubble Bloom, the coiled Spiral Bell, cloth-veiled wings, star-shaped rowers and more.

- Each is a prefab plus a small design file: drag it in, change it, or start your own from it.

DESIGN YOUR OWN

- GameObject > Jellyfish Studio > New Jellyfish... creates your jellyfish - its design file and prefab in a folder of its own under Assets/My Jellyfish - from a starting species you pick by its picture.

- Every setting sits in its Inspector with a tooltip: Body, Bell, Rim, Tentacles, Oral Arms, Organs, Look, Pattern, Pulse and Detail. Generate rebuilds it and every copy in your scenes; Duplicate... and, for stock species, Reset to Factory are one click away.

- Swimming, Behaviour, Physics and Variation apply at once, even in Play mode, and the Scene view previews the pulse and the flow without Play mode.

PROCEDURAL ANATOMY

- Bells from flat saucers to tall domes and needles - lobed, scalloped, grooved, square like a box jelly or star-shaped with rowing rays - and beyond the bell, rings, bubble clusters and spiral coils.

- Tentacles in eight layouts that curl, branch, trail, end in glowing bulbs or carry pearls; oral arms as frilled curtains, veils, tubes or club-tipped trunks; gonads, canals and other organs inside.

- Nothing is modelled by hand: on import the design file becomes meshes, pattern maps and materials, identically on every machine.

TRANSLUCENT, LIVING TISSUE

- Seen by the light it scatters: thick parts read denser, the thin margin glows, edges brighten at grazing angles and a wet sheen mirrors the bright window of the sky.

- Bioluminescence that glows steadily, pulses with each stroke, runs round the rim in waves, lights rings of points or flashes at random.

- Procedural colour, no texture files: gradients, iridescent films, drifting hues, luminous seams and sparkles - each stock species has its own palette. Optional cartoon shading.

SWIMS LIKE THE REAL ANIMAL

- A pulse from measurements of real jellyfish that slows with size and stays even - speed comes from deeper, longer strokes, not pauses - and copies of one prefab never pulse in step.

- Turns carry inertia, every stroke is a little lopsided, the soft bell sways and the margin ripples between strokes. Stronger than life on request: up to five times the natural stroke rate.

- Press Play and they are already swimming: tentacles, arms and veils start in their swimming pose.

SIMULATED IN WATER

- Tentacles, oral arms and veils are solved with Burst at 120 Hz: water drag that makes them trail and settle, buoyancy, the jet and vortex rings of every stroke, currents and turbulence.

- Cloth veils fold, billow and drag like fabric. Dense manes simulate a share of their strands and let the rest follow: the Lion's Mane solves 128 of its 512 tentacles.

WHERE IT GOES

- Free: it wanders in runs of strokes inside a Swim Area or near where it started.

- Path: it steers along a Jellyfish Path shaped with handles in the Scene view - not a rail.

- Scripted: your script, Animator or Timeline moves it, and Pulse() strokes on cue.

- It avoids obstacles, keeps apart from its neighbours and drifts with Jellyfish Current volumes; a Jellyfish Group places up to five members with varied size, hue and tempo.

SAMPLES

- 13 demo scenes: a sunlit Aquarium, Deep Glow with the glowing species, Shapes with the bodies beyond the bell, Groups, Path, Script, and seven behaviour scenes - a wall, a ceiling, a room, a narrow gap, two currents and a swim area.

- A W A S D flight camera (Input Manager or Input System), a guided tour, light shafts, fog and marine snow that softens into bokeh, ready to reuse.

FAST

- Built once, on import; at runtime the GPU bends shared meshes from the body's pose and the simulated strand points - no per-frame mesh uploads, no garbage, and the simulation runs on worker threads.

- Stock jellyfish are hero quality; for crowds, lower the Detail settings on a copy.

DOCUMENTATION

- A manual that explains every setting and the scripting API, a quick start and a changelog: Window > Jellyfish Studio > Documentation.

More from this family

- Real Underwater - screen-space underwater rendering for any water asset: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/slug/406038

- Real Underwater Worlds - complete underwater biomes from presets (coming soon)

Support

Questions, bug reports and ideas: the support thread on Unity Discussions or the support e-mail on this page. If Jellyfish Studio serves you well, a rating or a short review on the Asset Store helps other developers find it - optional, and nothing depends on it.